Captain of His Soul
by englishtutor
Summary: In which John and Sherlock learn to go on without Mary following her untimely death. A sequel to "Invictus", with references to many other of my Mary-centric tales. Mary first calls John "Captain" in the story "Red-Handed Recriminations."
1. Chapter 1

This is a sequel to "Invictus". Several of my lovely readers have requested a fic describing our heroes' lives after Mary's untimely death. Here is what I imagined would happen.

000

"Invictus" by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,  
Black as the pit from pole to pole,  
I thank whatever gods may be  
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance  
I have not winced nor cried aloud.  
Under the bludgeonings of chance  
My head is bloody but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears  
Looms but the Horror of the shade,  
And yet the menace of the years  
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how straight the gate,  
How charged with punishments the scroll,  
I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

000

One night, three weeks after the funeral, John disappeared. Again.

Sherlock was not concerned. He and John were coping with Mary's death in the only way they knew: they had thrown themselves into The Work, keeping as busy as possible in order to ignore the empty space she had left in their world. Even the most tediously boring case was preferable to sitting in a flat that was permeated with reminders of her absence. Mary's spirit suffused every square inch of 221B Baker Street; Sherlock could almost hear her rummaging about in the kitchen or laughing on the stairs. He could almost feel her pat him affectionately on the head or kiss him on the cheek as she always used to do. Mary had loved him well, as only a sister could.

But if Sherlock missed Mary so entirely, how much more must John now feel bereft? He could not imagine it, and he felt he was intruding by even trying to imagine. John was a private man. If he needed to get away from Baker Street for a bit of a respite, Sherlock would not question it. Unable to concentrate on his work, he reflected upon the first time John had disappeared.

It had been the night before Mary's funeral. Mycroft had graciously made all the funeral arrangements—John and Sherlock needed only to attend. It was a mixed blessing—they were relieved not to have to do everything themselves, and yet it left them with nothing to occupy the heavy time on their hands. Sherlock had spent the afternoon in his mind palace, arranging the room Mary occupied. His inner-John was his moral compass, his conscience; his inner-Mary was his tutor in social interaction. John made Sherlock good; Mary made him human. He was grateful to them both, cherishing every interaction with them in his memory. However, because of this, he missed the fact that John had gone.

But then his phone interrupted his meditations. It was Angelo. "Sherlock, our little friend the doctor is here," the restaurateur said, sounding concerned. "He doesn't eat, he doesn't speak; he drinks and he sits. I worry about him. He has been here for hours."

Sherlock had walked the few blocks to Angelo's in record time and slid silently into the booth across from his friend. John was staring out of the window, a glass of wine in his hand. He was not drunk, but a substantial amount was missing from the bottle on the table. Angelo had thoughtfully brought him his usual, but the plate sat untouched. A slight shift of his position and a glance towards his friend was all the acknowledgement the grieving husband gave to Sherlock's arrival. The detective felt uncomfortably like an intruder, but sat quietly and waited, as Mary would have told him to.

"It's October 15," John spoke at last, so quietly Sherlock could hardly hear him. "Six years ago today, we came here for our first date." Sherlock could think of nothing to say to this, and so he wisely said nothing. Angelo brought another glass, and the detective helped himself to the bottle. Together they sat, watching the evening give way to midnight. And then they had walked wordlessly home. John had locked himself in his room and had wept until dawn, leaving Sherlock to pace restlessly about the flat, feeling utterly useless. It had been a difficult night.

Now he tried to immerse himself in his latest experiment and ignore the unendurable emptiness of the flat. He was not certain of when John had slipped out, but the silence his flatmate had left behind was unbearably loud. Then his phone signalled a text message.

_John Watson has been standing at the rail of Westminster Bridge for almost two hours. Should we be concerned for his state of mind? MH_

_Leave him alone. He is not suicidal. SH_

Nevertheless, Sherlock tried calling John's mobile immediately and was a bit alarmed when it went straight to voicemail. John rarely turned his phone off. Why would he do so now? Sherlock dressed quickly and rushed out to get a cab.

Spotting his friend in the darkness halfway across the bridge, Sherlock called for the driver to stop a good ways away. He paid the man and sent him on. Who knew how long this would take? No sense keeping the driver waiting. He approached his friend cautiously, as if creeping up on a wild animal, uncertain of his reception. It was immediately obvious by John's posture that he was not contemplating suicide. Rather than leaning over the rail looking into the murky depths of the Thames, he was resting his back against the rail, looking up at St. Stephen's Tower. Oddly, in spite of the fact that John was facing his direction, Sherlock's approach was ignored. The detective was unsure of what he was meant to do, now that he had arrived. Consulting his inner-Mary, he decided to settle himself against the rail beside his friend and wait in silence.

As he waited, he began to deduce the reason for John's behaviour. Standing on Westminster Bridge for hours in an early November chill staring at Big Ben was not a normal activity for his friend. However, the last time John had disappeared had been an important anniversary date. Sherlock mentally rummaged through his John-and-Mary-file. Yes, there it was. Three weeks after their first date, John had left Baker Street to see Mary with the attitude of a man hopelessly in love but expecting eventual rejection. He had returned in the wee hours of the morning with the confident posture of a man whose love was fully requited. Moreover, he had the insufferably joyous (and perhaps a bit self-satisfied) expression of a man who had just been thoroughly snogged. Sherlock imagined affixing an official plaque to the rail: "Historic Landmark—here John and Mary Watson shared their first kiss", with a date on the bottom. He considered briefly whether it was Mary who first kissed John or vice versa, leaning strongly in favour of the former, but realized he was treading in an area that was decidedly not his business.

Eventually, and without turning his eyes from the lights of Parliament, John spoke. "So how did you find me?"

"Mycroft was concerned that you might . . . do yourself a mischief," Sherlock admitted reluctantly.

"Tell Mycroft he can bloody-well throw himself in the Thames and mind his own bloody business," John commented without rancour. Sherlock nodded in silent agreement.

After a long pause, John asked, "You knew better, I assume? So, why are you here?"

Sherlock scrambled for a feasible answer. "The temperature is dropping. I was concerned for your health."

"Hmm," John sighed, then looked at Sherlock for the first time since he had arrived. "I wouldn't, you know. Kill myself. In case."

"In case of what?"

"In case there really is an afterlife," John admitted, a bit sheepishly. "Can you imagine what she would say to me if I did away with myself? I would rather do anything than have her disappointed in me."

Sherlock strongly felt the same way. "I know," he said tonelessly.

They stood there several more minutes, watching the traffic passing by. At last, Sherlock ventured, "However, you are making two great assumptions in that reasoning. First, that there is a possibility of an afterlife. And second, that if there is, you would end up in the same place as Mary."

John snorted in surprised laughter, music in Sherlock's ears. It was the first time he'd heard his friend's laughter since . . . .

"Since you're so concerned for my health, I suggest we walk home," John said at last. "It will warm us up a bit." Together, they started off on the hour-long trek to Baker Street.

"Just as a point of reference," Sherlock said as they trudged down the pavement, "how many days of importance will you be commemorating in the course of the year?"

John looked a bit annoyed. They had not, after all, discussed his reasons for being on the bridge; but it proved Sherlock's deductions to be correct. He took so long to reply that his friend thought an answer would not be forthcoming. Then, when he did speak, it was in a voice so quiet and broken that Sherlock was not certain he heard correctly.

"Three hundred and sixty-five," he thought he heard John say.


	2. Chapter 2

In retrospect, Sherlock considered that he ought to have expected John to disappear on Christmas day.

In the 70 days that had passed since Mary's funeral, he and John had worked nearly non-stop, with only a rare day off. And they were doing the best work of their lives. Cases had never been solved so quickly; their minds had never seemed so sharp; and if they were a little bit more inclined to get involved in chases and fist fights, no one said anything about it.

"I'm frankly amazed by you two," Lestrade had told them at one point. "No one would have blamed you if you had taken some time off, or if your workload was lightened or was not up to standard for a bit. But you're both on the top of your game. I've never seen you so focused."

John, unable to respond, had turned away, leaving Sherlock to speak for them both. "Mary believed in us," he said simply. "She believed in The Work—that what we do is important and valuable. It would be a disservice to her memory to do less than our best. And to use our grief over her loss as an excuse to do slipshod work would dishonour her even more. She would certainly not approve."

Lestrade nodded gravely, tears standing in his eyes, and Sherlock remembered that the D.I. had also loved Mary and was dealing with her loss in his own way. "I get that," Lestrade encouraged them. "But I am sure she would also not approve of you running yourselves into the ground and ruining your health. You should take a break sometimes, get some rest."

But they could not. Not yet, at any rate. Falling into bed, exhausted at the end of a busy day, was the only way either of them could sleep at all. Days off were excruciating—dull and colourless and without purpose.

Meantime, Sherlock had had only a peripheral impression of its being the Christmas season. In Baker Street, the holidays never arrived. For the first time since Mary had swept joyously into their lives, there were no trees or lights or garlands in the flat; no enticing scent of baking, no one humming carols or knitting gift scarves. The darkness of winter descended on their home unalleviated by the celebrations that went heartlessly on around them.

They had become so popular and in demand in recent years, they had no dearth of cases, and could have worked on Christmas day itself if they had so desired. And Sherlock had so desired. But when he emerged from his room that morning, John had already gone.

It had taken approximately six seconds for Sherlock to deduce where John would be. His friend had gone to the storage area where Mary's things were kept the day before and had come home with a box, which he took immediately to his room. It didn't take a genius to figure out that this would be a day of commemoration. Sherlock gathered up some supplies and followed, prepared to stand by his friend in whatever he needed to do to get through the day.

000

"Do you know where John is, Sherlock?" Lestrade demanded over the phone later that morning.

"Yes, I know exactly where John is," Sherlock replied. "I am looking at him."

"Oh," the D.I. seemed at a loss for a moment. "Right. I thought he was alone. I got a report from the Met that the caretakers of the cemetery where Mary is buried were concerned about a man who has been sitting at her graveside for hours."

Sherlock frowned, annoyed by the intrusiveness of strangers into their privacy. "Why would the Metropolitan police contact you?" he grumbled.

"Anything to do with you two is automatically referred to me," Lestrade explained. "It's protocol."

The fact that the Met had a protocol in place just for dealing with them was intriguing, but Sherlock would not be side-tracked. "Everything's fine. Just leave him alone," he said sternly.

Lestrade hesitated. "Are you sure he's okay?"

"Yes!" Sherlock almost yelled, catching himself in time.

"He doesn't know you're there, does he?" Lestrade realized perceptively.

"Well, he might NOW," Sherlock growled. "I have the situation well in hand. Leave us alone." Then, belatedly, nudged by his inner-Mary, he added, "Thank you for your concern. We'll be fine."

He had, in fact, been sitting just out of John's line of sight, keeping an eye on his friend for an hour. John had spread a blanket out over Mary's grave and had been drinking mulled wine from a thermos and reading aloud from a slim volume of poems by Henley. Even at a distance, Sherlock was aware that this was the book John had given to Mary on their first Christmas together.

When John finally closed the book, Sherlock was also aware he had read every poem in the volume except "Invictus"—Mary's favourite. This was a bit not good.

His inner-Mary nudged him again. It was time to intervene. Sherlock moved to sit beside his friend, draping a blanket over their shoulders.

"I have coffee," Sherlock offered. He thought John had probably had enough wine.

John nodded wordlessly, and Sherlock poured them each a cup from his own thermos.

They sat together, sipping their coffees for a while. Eventually, Sherlock ventured to speak.

"After I stabbed you," he began, and stopped as John turned to glare at him. "After The Accident," Sherlock amended quickly, and John turned his eyes back to the horizon. "After you were released from hospital, Mary told us something important. Do you remember?"

John pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly, shuddering. "Yeah."

"She said that we can't control our circumstances, but we can control our reactions to them. She said that was being the Cap-. . . . "

"Don't!" John interrupted. "Just . . . don't."

Sherlock nodded. Mary had quoted "Invictus" to them that day. And on that day, she had first called John "Captain". It meant she had perfect faith in him to always do the right thing, whatever the circumstances.

A long silence stretched on between them. Sherlock was at a loss, but he knew that the wisest course was to let John work things out for himself. Finally, John stirred and handed Sherlock Mary's book.

"I couldn't read it," he said quietly. "I . . . couldn't see the words properly."

Sherlock looked at John keenly, deciding what to do with that admission. "I can," he said at last.

John leaned back against Mary's gravestone and closed his eyes, folding his arms over his chest as if to stop his heart from breaking through. "Do it," he said, so softly Sherlock could not really hear him but could only read his lips.

And so, he read Mary's poem to John, changing the pronouns as she would do, so that he was speaking the words to him directly.

"You are the Captain of your soul," he finished. He gently closed the book.

After a long moment, John took a deep breath and opened his eyes, ready to get back to the hard work of living again.

"Okay," John said, and they rose to leave.


	3. Chapter 3

The next time John disappeared, Sherlock was ready for it. He had deduced that the next commemorative date would be the day John had proposed to Mary. A quick perusal of his flatmate's laptop confirmed a reservation at the Ritz Hotel for that date. Armed with a time and place, Sherlock prepared his strategy.

It had now been six months since Mary had left them, and their lives had achieved a sort of rhythm that gave them a sense of equilibrium. Slowly they were returning to their old habits of living together as they had before Mary had entered their world. John read the papers to Sherlock over breakfast. Sherlock talked out his cases to John, whether John was present or not. John did the shopping, the cooking, the cleaning. Sherlock dissected body parts and performed experiments on the kitchen table. John sometimes went out to the pub with Lestrade or with Mike Stamford. Sherlock sometimes insisted on dragging John to Angelo's or to other old haunts where they had customarily eaten as a pair of bachelors. Reverting to type, Sherlock began rejecting the more boring cases, concentrating his efforts on the ones that captured his interest. They found themselves smiling more easily as time went by. John's wry sense of humour returned bit by bit, and Sherlock found himself able to go for hours at a time without thinking of Mary.

The important date arrived. Sherlock's inner-Mary cautioned him to allow John adequate privacy before rushing in to help, and so he timed his arrival at the Ritz precisely in order to give John one hour of solitude. Sherlock deemed that to be plenty of time to allow for wallowing in his emotions alone. However, when he arrived at the Ritz dining room, the table John had reserved was occupied by a young couple in formal wear, and there was no sign of his flatmate.

The maître d' confirmed that the gentleman in question had indeed shown up, approached his reserved table, and then hovered in its vicinity for several minutes before fleeing to the entryway. The staff had observed with interest as he had attempted to re-enter the restaurant a number of times before finally giving up and walking out of the hotel altogether. Had anyone noticed which direction the skittish diner had headed? Of course not. Sherlock sighed. What to do now? All his careful planning, thwarted by inconceivable emotional responses.

Where would John go? As far as Sherlock knew, the couple had not gone anywhere else on the night in question. Mary had claimed that they had danced all night at the Ritz. Perhaps he had gone to another place of importance to them. Westminster Bridge? Unlikely. They had enjoyed walking in parks. But to which one would John go? Every park was Mary's favourite park. What if John were just wandering aimlessly through the streets? It was hopeless. Sherlock did not have enough to data to go on. Perhaps he should send out his homeless network to search for John? Should he contact Mycroft to check the CCTV cameras in the area? How annoyed would John be if Sherlock got others involved in this private part of his life?

At last, Sherlock realized that the most obvious solution would be to ask John where he was. After the Westminster Bridge incident, his friend had promised not to turn his phone off again as long as Sherlock promised not to call it for frivolous reasons.

_Where are you? _Sherlock texted. John sent a one-word answer—the name of a bar near Westminster station. Sherlock frowned. A bar. Not a park. Not a pub. This did not bode well, he thought.

Arriving at the bar, he easily spotted his friend at a corner table with a pint in his hand, fending off the advances of a female nearly young enough to be his daughter. Intrigued, Sherlock kept out of John's line of sight and watched this phenomenon. He had noticed of late-and Lestrade had commented on this as well—that as John's hair faded to grey and as time etched more character-lines into his face, the more female attention he seemed to attract. His customarily friendly and affable personality had been eclipsed by a sorrowful vulnerability tinged with an air of dangerous edginess, a romantic combination that appeared to be irresistibly attractive to the opposite sex. Sherlock watched with fascinated amusement for over 20 minutes as John dealt with no less than six flirtatious women who were drawn to the sight of a man brooding alone over a pint as cats are drawn opportunistically to a puddle of spilt milk.

Eventually, though, he realized that his exasperated friend needed a rescue. The sixth young woman was apparently not taking "no" for an answer. Sherlock moved to stand behind John's chair and placed his hands on his friend's shoulders. Leaning over to speak in John's ear, he rumbled loudly enough for her to hear, "Well, John, should I be jealous?"

The woman apologized and fled. Other women around the room nodded to themselves, relieved that there was an explanation for their rejection by the mysterious stranger other than their own obnoxious behaviour. Sherlock walked around the table to sit across from John, who smiled and said, "Sherlock, thank god you're here. I'd quite forgotten what it was like to be single in a place like this."

Sherlock snorted derisively. "John, be honest. You were never this desirable to women when you were single."

John looked annoyed, but had to admit to the justice of Sherlock's observation. "I wonder what it is?" he mused.

"Brooding," Sherlock assured him solemnly. "It is a well-known fact that women find brooding to be overpoweringly alluring."

"Brooding? Where on earth did you hear that?" John demanded, unbelieving.

"Um, on telly," Sherlock admitted sheepishly. "Talk shows."

"Well, then, it must be true," John chuckled sarcastically.

Sherlock picked up John's mug and sipped. He did not really like ale, but it seemed like something a comrade would do. Then he asked, "So why are you here instead of at the Ritz?"

John looked resigned. "No point asking how you know about that, I suppose. You always know, don't you?" he asked affectionately. "I . . . I just couldn't manage it, I guess. The Ritz isn't really a place one can sit in alone, you know. I was surrounded by couples, laughing and dancing. It made me feel resentful and bitter. I didn't want to feel resentful and bitter while I was remembering Mary. So I left."

Sherlock nodded and said nothing. Mary had taught him that silence was often the best way to get people talking. Sure enough, John soon said, "Have I ever told you about when I proposed to Mary?"

Sherlock shook his head. "I presume she squealed with delight and made a public spectacle of herself."

"Well, eventually," John smiled quietly. "But initially, she refused me outright."

Sherlock's eyebrows raised, but he could see that John was trying not to laugh at the memory.

"I had only got so far as "would you" before she cut me off and begged me not to ask her. She said she'd tried it once and it was no good. She'd only hurt me and make me sorry I'd asked her. Naturally, I apologized for my presumption, and then she apologized for hurting my feelings. Eventually, we agreed to just let things go on as they had been." John was now grinning broadly. "And then I asked her to dance with me, and she turned white as a sheet."

"Ah!" Sherlock exclaimed, chuckling with his friend. "What did she say when she realized her mistake-that you hadn't been asking her to dance before then?"

"She was horrified! She demanded that I ask her my question again and promised to let me finish my sentence. Of course, I told her the mood had passed; it was too late." They were now both laughing in earnest. "So she insisted I ask her again and swore she'd say yes to whatever I asked."

"Fearless Mary!" Sherlock smiled fondly. It was the first time they had been able to speak freely of Mary in any tone other than grief. Now it was as if the dam holding back precious memories had been breached, and their favourite stories of their life with Mary came pouring out in a torrent of affectionate laughter.

"Remember when she identified the cause of death at that house in Highgate, when every one of us there was stumped? 'I've caused wounds like this before,' she said, and Anderson nearly had an apoplectic fit," Sherlock grinned.

"Remember when she attacked that pickpocket at our wedding reception and bloodied his nose for him?" John chortled.

Sherlock told John about the amusing way Mary, on their trip to Cornwall, had fended off the advances of a young P.C. who had a bad case of hero-worship. John told Sherlock about the three assassins he and Mary had caught in their flat on their first anniversary, and how she had scolded them severely for spilling coffee on her carpeting as she handcuffed them. Sherlock marvelled aloud that the tiny Mary had managed to drag his unconscious body out of a roomful of poisonous gas, saving his life. John boasted about how his clever Mary had thwarted a pair of bank robbers while she was locked inside a safe. They reminisced for hours, feeling now the joy that Mary had given them with her life rather than the sorrow she had left behind. They inevitably finished with the story of her sacrificial death, and they were able to feel pride in her courage.

"I could wish she had not been so brave," John mused. "But if she had not been so utterly fearless, she would never have married me in the first place. She had to face her greatest fears to make a life with me. I'm just grateful for what time we had." He was silent for a long while. Then he said, "It wasn't my fault, was it? It really wasn't. I couldn't have reached her in time to save her."

"Of course not," Sherlock scoffed. "It was the killer's fault, and no one else's. He and his partner are the ones who did this to us. And they have paid dearly for it."

They went home, and they both slept better than they had since Mary had left them—the first truly peaceful, restful night they had passed in six months. Sherlock did not once have that re-occurring dream which had plagued him every night—the one in which he had been clever enough and fast enough and good enough to save Mary; the one that always left him lying sleepless and angry until dawn. And Mary's Captain did not wake up screaming her name even one time all that night.

She would have been pleased.

000

The story of John's proposal to Mary is told in "Dancing Round the Subject". The other stories referred to here are from "His Spare Watson", "Making Friends and Forming Alliances", "Can't Manage Ordinary", and "Invictus."


	4. Chapter 4

Sherlock wondered what to do about Mary's birthday.

His own birthday that January had passed by without his noticing it. It was only days later, when he received a belated greeting card from Molly, busy with her important new job in Edinburgh, that he realized he was a year older and that the little cake Mrs. Hudson had presented him with earlier that week had been meant to be a birthday cake. When Mary had been alive . . . . Well, it didn't bear thinking about, did it? Mary always made a great fuss over Sherlock's birthday, with presents and a special dinner and a cake with his favourite buttercream icing. He wasn't sure he wanted a birthday without Mary.

John's birthday, a few days after the aborted-Ritz incident, had also gone by without any notice, other than his wan observation that it had been on that day six years earlier that they had thrown their engagement party. Sherlock had half expected John to disappear on that day, but they had been immersed in a difficult and particularly enjoyable murder case; and John seemed determined to throw off his "brooding" persona. Mary would never have put up with brooding.

But Mary's own birthday could not go by unacknowledged. Sherlock could not have borne that, and he was certain that neither could John. Not to celebrate the fact of her existence would have felt entirely wrong. But what to do?

Before that day arrived, though, another important day of commemoration must be dealt with. John and Mary's sixth wedding anniversary was an easy day to plan for. Naturally, John disappeared, and naturally, Sherlock followed him to Regent's Park, the site of their wedding ceremony and picnic-reception. What the detective had not bargained for was the thoughtfulness of their friends. John's other commemorative days had been of private events that only he (and his genius flatmate) would know about. But everyone knew when and where the wedding had taken place. When Sherlock arrived at Regent's Park, having given John his hour (so he thought) of solitude, he found Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson already there, sitting with John on a bench and sharing a bottle of Champaign.

"There you are," John had said, almost cheerfully. "We were wondering when you'd turn up."

Lestrade had laughed heartily. "You wondered if Mary would ever turn up, on the big day," he remembered. "You thought she'd wised up at the last minute and decided not to go through with it."

"And then, there she was!" John smiled, his eyes looking far away. "She looked like a perfect angel in that white dress, and her hair done up just so." He chuckled. "And then she was kicking off her shoes and running after the pickpockets, just behind us, hairpins flying! What force of nature she was!"

"It was a beautiful ceremony," Mrs. Hudson quavered, dabbing at her eyes with a wadded handkerchief. "Oh, but that cake! We worked ever so hard on it; it was beautiful. And then, there it was, in bits all over the stairway. But Mary just laughed! 'Never mind, dear,' she told me. 'It's just a cake. It's our marriage that's important—the wedding's just for fun.'"

"It was fun, wasn't it?" John mused. "Wouldn't most women be furious over the pickpocket incident? But Mary called it 'entertainment.'"

The friends had reminisced for a bit longer and then had gone back to their lives. Lestrade had pulled Sherlock aside, however, as John wandered on ahead with his motherly landlady. "Well done, helping John deal with this," he said quietly. "I've been worried about him, but I know he's in good hands with you sticking by his side through it all."

Sherlock was a bit bewildered, being praised for doing what seemed the logical thing to do. "Where else would I be?" he wondered. "But helping him helps me, so it's far from selfless on my part."

Their friends and the time that had passed had helped that day ease by without the pain past commemorations had brought. But Mary's birthday. What to do?

On the day in question, he had expected John to disappear again. But instead, he found his flatmate sitting at the desk with several photo albums. All the pictures he had of Mary and their life together had been gathered into those few slim volumes. Mary had kept up with them herself for the most part; the few pictures she had not had time to place into the albums before she died John was now carefully pasting onto the pages and writing captions in his scrawling, doctor's hand.

Sherlock considered whether he should leave his friend alone or join him. Finally, he gave in to his own desires for once and asked, "May I see?" John agreed eagerly, wanting to share his memories with his friend, and Sherlock was relieved that he had chosen the correct option.

John moved to the couch, and they sat side by side, looking at the pictures and few other bits of memorabilia that Mary had chosen to include, remembering. They laughed a bit. They cried as well. Mary had been gone for nine months, and it already seemed like a lifetime since she had been with them. Talking about her brought her back to them, and now instead of being unbearably painful, it was sweet and healing.

"I'm so afraid of forgetting," John admitted softly. "I want to remember everything. The sound of her laughter. What her hair smelled like. The feel of her head on my shoulder. How she looked when she was sleeping. I used to love watching her sleep. Pictures help, but they can't capture those things."

Sherlock nodded. There were things he wanted to remember about Mary as well. The fond exasperation in her voice when she spoke to him sometimes ("Good lord, Sweetheart!" she would say to him. He had loved it when she did that.) The way she always understood what he meant, even when he said the opposite. ("Don't be such a worrier," he would complain to her when she fussed over him. "I love you, too," she would reply.)

John closed the last album and gently stroked the cover. "All the pictures I have of Mary were taken after I met her," he told his friend. "I know so little about her life from before we were together. She would tell me bits and pieces when things came up, but she really didn't like talking about her past. And I thought," he stopped, struggling to contain his emotions. "I thought, you know, we'd have . . . a lifetime to . . . to talk about things at her own pace. Now there are things about her I will never know."

Sherlock felt a strange combination of sorrow for his friend and elation for a decision well-made. "I have something for you," he said. "A birthday present."

John looked at him in amazement. "A birthday present?" He watched the detective leave the room and come back with a package wrapped in plain, brown paper. "What is it?"

His hands shook as he tore off the paper. Inside was a framed copy of Mary's birth certificate, tangible proof of her existence. "This is . . . this is amazing," John whispered, tears in his eyes. "Thank you."

"It is I who should be thanking you," Sherlock murmured, "for bringing her into my life. I will always be grateful for that."

John smiled through his tears. "Yeah. Me, too," he said.


	5. Chapter 5

"What do you think, Sherlock?" Lestrade asked earnestly. "Do we keep him busy all day? Or give him lots of time alone? Or something in between?"

The two men were in Mrs Hudson's kitchen, sipping tea and discussing the quickly up-coming anniversary of the day of Mary's death; a day they carefully alluded to only as "the eleventh of October."

"Why are you asking me? Since when am I an expert on anyone's emotional well-being?" Sherlock demanded peevishly.

"You're not, dear. No one's saying that," Mrs Hudson tried to soothe him. "But you ARE the expert on John's well-being. Anyway, what about the project you've been working on the past three months. Isn't that meant for the eleventh?"

"No. It's meant for the fifteenth," Sherlock told them. They looked at him blankly.

"The day before the funeral? Why that day?" Lestrade wondered.

Sherlock felt it was not his business to talk about John and Mary's special days, especially their first date. "Never mind. It has a significance that makes this project appropriate for that particular day. We'll have to do something else on the eleventh."

"I do have an idea," Lestrade continued. "I'd like to run it by you before putting it into the works." By the time John returned from the market, they had ironed out the details and knew just what each needed to do to get ready for the fateful day.

000

The morning of the eleventh was dreary and rainy, and John seemed reluctant to stir from his bed. This smote Sherlock to the heart—his friend had been doing so much better in the months after Mary's birthday. He rarely had a nightmare, and his PTSD symptoms were almost non-existent even when not on the job. Sherlock, too, had been sleeping without the dreams and feeling more himself since he had begun his secret project, which he planned to reveal to John on the fifteenth.

"Lestrade needs us in his office at 9:00 sharp," Sherlock stated firmly, pulling clothes out of John's wardrobe and throwing them at his head. "Get up if you want any time for breakfast before we leave."

John sighed and did as his friend demanded. They arrived at NSY only a few minutes past the hour, Sherlock looking eager and expectant, John looking weary. A nervous, middle-aged woman in a coat that had seen better days was sitting in Lestrade's office chatting with the D.I. and twisting a handkerchief in her hands. Beside her sat a young boy, perhaps nine years old, twining his feet around the legs of his chair.

"I'm glad you chaps could make it." Lestrade rose from his chair behind his desk and crossed to the doorway of his office to greet them sincerely. "Come on in; there's someone here who'd like to meet you." The woman and the boy also stood, looking at their feet in a state of nerves. "Mrs Olivia Smithson, this is Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson, the famous detectives."

Mrs Smithson offered her hand to each of them, shyly looking just past their eyes as she murmured, "So pleased to meet you. We've been great fans of yours for years."

"And this young lad is William Smithson," Lestrade continued, speaking cautiously. "He's the child Mary's assailants first chose to be their hostage in the robbery at the clinic."

Lestrade and Sherlock were watching John's reactions carefully, unsure of how he would feel about this meeting. His eyes blazed with the remembrance of that horrifying day one year earlier and his mouth set into a grim line. But he politely took the boy's offered hand and shook it gravely.

"I've been longing to meet you, sir," the boy said earnestly, with a polite air beyond his tender years. "And you, too, Mr Holmes. But I didn't know until a few days ago who it was that saved me. I was too shook up to understand what was going on at the time, see. I just knew she was a doctor, and that she was terribly brave. Then the Detective Inspector told us she was married to you, Dr Watson, and I thought it just made sense—a hero like her wouldn't be married to anyone less than another hero."

"We've been wanting to show our gratitude all this time, sir," Mrs Smithson gathered her courage to say. "Your wife gave me my boy back; she gave us both our lives. I was trying to get those men to take me instead of William, but she pushed me back. She said a boy needs his mother, and that she could take care of herself. She was braver than anything I've ever seen." These last words seemed to take all her energy to say; she dropped back into her chair and wiped her streaming eyes with her already damp handkerchief.

John looked from Sherlock to Lestrade wordlessly, frozen, unable to respond.

"Perhaps we ought to have prepared John a bit," a worried Lestrade stepped into the breach. "We're grateful you were able to come in to talk to us today," he encouraged gently.

John visibly shook himself, pulling himself together. "Yes, I'm sorry, yes," he said quietly, in a daze. "I . . . yes, thank you for coming to see us. I'm . . . happy to meet you." His smile was warm and genuine.

William stood straight and tall, but tears stood in his eyes. His words tumbled out in a torrent of heartfelt sincerity. "I want you to know, sir, I don't take it lightly. Dr Watson gave her life for me, and I promise I won't let it be for nothing. I won't waste it, sir, I swear I won't. I want to be a doctor when I grow up, like her, and help people. And I want to always be as fearless as she was."

Greatly moved, John dropped heavily to one knee to be closer to eye-level with the boy, and put his hands on his shoulders. "She would be proud, William. And very pleased to know that," he said, simply but wholeheartedly in a voice rough with emotion.

William smiled, and after a moment's nervous hesitation, threw his arms around John's neck. "I'm sorry, Dr Watson. I know you must miss her a lot," he cried. John patted the child's back gently, seeming to be gathering strength from the encounter.

"I do, William. But it helps to know that she died for a good reason. I'm pleased to know what a fine young man you are." John stood again and solemnly shook the child's hand. "Please keep in touch and let me know how you're doing. Mary and I were never able to have children. Perhaps you'll let me help you towards your career, as I would have liked to have done for a son of my own. It will help me to look towards the future, instead of wallowing in the past, and she would certainly be glad of that."

"Thank you, sir," William said soberly, and his mother stood and offered her gratitude as well.

After the meeting was all over, John and Sherlock by wordless agreement took a cab to the cemetery where Mary was buried. Sherlock hung back as John approached her gravestone and watched as his friend began to speak to his beloved wife. He couldn't be absolutely certain, but he felt sure he could just hear John quoting "Invictus" to her just before he turned to leave the graveside.

As John left, Sherlock stepped up to Mary's gravestone and touched it with a gentle hand. He had no words to say, except, "Mary, we're doing the best we can. I hope we're making you proud."

000

"Will you be going to Angelo's tonight?" Sherlock asked John on the afternoon of the fifteenth.

"Um, yes. I suppose you'll be joining me?" John replied with a wry smile. "After giving me a decent head-start."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Of course. It's been working for us so far. Why change the formula now? But I have something to show you before you go out. Sit here and I'll bring it to you."

John sat in his old armchair and waited uncertainly. A surprise from Sherlock Holmes could be marvellous or it could be terrifying. Soon his friend re-entered the room with a heavy box in his hands.

"What's this?" John asked with a bit of trepidation.

"Open it," Sherlock urged him impatiently, eager to see the culmination of his three-months-long project.

John lifted the lid. Inside were baby shoes, old photo albums, a white christening dress. "Oh, my god," he whispered. "Is this . . . . is this what I think it is? Sherlock, where did these come from? How did you get them?" He lifted the tiny dress out reverently in trembling hands.

"From an old army storage facility in India," Sherlock explained. "For so many years, everyone assumed Mary's father disappeared on his way here from the Middle East. But we now know that he never left India. I realized that his things might still have been there, stashed away. It took a bit of doing, and Mycroft pulling some strings, but we found it at last. I was also able to get pictures and paperwork from many of her old schools here in England. It isn't a complete record of her life, but it's a goodly start."

John began to look through the first photo album. "These must be of Mary's mother. Oh, what she wouldn't have given to have seen these! And this . . . this must be Mary, as a new-born. Have you looked at these? Look at her, she was an angel with all those blond curls! Sherlock, I . . . ." His voice broke. "This is . . . ." He couldn't go on.

"I know," Sherlock assured him.

John sat back in his chair, overwhelmed. "Sherlock, you've . . . . you've given me her past. I don't know what to say."

"You've already said it, at Mary's grave. 'Invictus'. Undefeated. We'll be as fearless as Mary and continue to do the work she believed in. She would expect nothing less of us," Sherlock said.

"Right," John agreed soberly, but lost himself in his gift for a while.


End file.
